Despite my intention, I feel asleep, and when I awoke it was daylight. I sprang up and went cautiously down-stairs, sword in hand. But there was no danger. Only the host and a servant were stirring in the inn. I made a rapid breakfast, and went to see my horse fed. Before the shed, I saw the young man who had made such drunken tumult in the kitchen the previous night. He was just about to mount his horse; but there was now nothing of the roysterer about his look or manner. He had restored neatness to his attire, and his expression was sedate and humble, though strength and sturdiness were as apparent in him as ever.
"A fine morning," I said, as the inn-servant brought out my own horse.
"Yes, monsieur," said the young man, in a very respectful tone. "A sunrise like this is a gift from the good God."
"Yet you look pensive."
"It is because I know how little I deserve such mercy as to live on such a day," answered the man, gravely; and he bowed politely, and rode southward.
This devoutness and humility impressed me as being strangely out of harmony with the profanity and turbulence of the night before, yet the one seemed no less genuine than the other.
My horse fed, I mounted and rode after the sturdy youth.
Not far from Mirebeau, happening to turn my head towards the north, I saw, in the distance, a group of horsemen approaching at a steady gallop. From having looked back at this group many times during the preceding day, I had stamped certain of its figures on my memory, and I now recognized it as Barbemouche and his party.
"Another day of it," I said, to myself, and spurred my horse to a gallop.
An increase in their own pace told me that they in turn had recognized me.